Bitcoin ETFs have reached record volumes following the green light from the SEC for the listing of the former 11 funds spot on the stock exchange. Total volumes on the first trading day exceeded 4 billion dollars. The record numbers were also achieved thanks to the queen of cryptocurrencies, which briefly surpassed yesterday $48.000 to then retrace and return to the $ range45.000-$46.000.
“ETFs will facilitate investment in Bitcoin for those investors who, due to the difficulties of direct holding or the inability to identify intermediaries
reliable companies have so far remained “on the sidelines”. He writes in a note Ferdinando AmetranoCEO, CheckSig.
Record volumes in the first session of Bitcoin ETFs
Il Grayscale bitcoin trust was the largest beneficiary with approx 2 billion dollars of volumes in the first session yesterday, according to the manager approximately 1 billion dollars of trades occurred within the first 90 minutes of trading. BlackRock stated that his ETF bitcoin iShares recorded more than 1 billion dollars in trade yesterday, also because the historically volatile price of bitcoin briefly jumped to $48.000 and then drops back to around $46,000. Considering the 11 products as a “unicum”, this is the all-time high for a Thematic ETF debuts on Wall Street.
According to information available from the SEC, the new ETFs started with approximately $113 million in total initial capital. The fund launched by VanEck led the way with about $72.5 million in seed money, followed by Fidelity with $20 million and BlackRock with $10 million. Issuers make up a broad spectrum of the ETF industry, with large, diversified asset managers including BlackRock and Invesco offering products alongside smaller groups with a greater focus on digital assets, such as Valkyrie and Bitwise.
Matthew Hougan, Bitwise’s chief investment officer said he had heard some “ridiculous numbers” in the range between 10 and 20 billion dollars as possible flow targets for bitcoin ETFs in their first year, but he cautioned against such hopes.
The change of direction of the SEC
The regulator, the SEC, had previously refused to give the green light to the listing of bitcoin funds, but last year it changed its pace after losing the legal battle started by Grayscale.
“Ten years after the first request, the SEC has finally authorized the Bitcoin ETF. By approving the requests of the main international asset managers, such as BlackRock and Fidelity, Gary Gensler’s SEC overturns the hostile position held by his predecessors and opens up the possibility of investing in Bitcoin through the ETF to the market.
“This is a historic turning point that marks the entry of Bitcoin as an investment asset into the world of traditional finance” – comments Ametrano. “If until now, with some reason, the crypto ecosystem was presented as a Wild West populated by scammers, it has now become clear to everyone that gold is there and it glitters: it’s called Bitcoin; that’s why the sheriff arrived in the city and, after stopping Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX) and Chanpeng Zhao (Binance), started giving out mining licenses (ETFs)”.
Like mutual funds, ETFs hold assets – just bitcoin, in this case – but trade on exchanges like stocks and usually enjoy preferential tax treatment in the United States. The $4 billion traded did not reflect an influx of new money on that scale.